The Underappreciated Significance of the Ongoing Court Battle Over Mass Shooting Information

Much of the information that the public may be hoping to see examined during the Mass Casualty Commission hearings is already compiled and available, but is sealed by Court Order. The ongoing battle over the disclosure of this information can give us insight into potential serious difficulties with the upcoming Commission hearings.

When the police want to search any private property, they need to provide information to a Judge or Justice of the Peace that is sufficient to justify the search. This application document is called an Information to Obtain (ITO). The police are obligated to disclose all relevant information they have about the case when requesting the search, and the RCMP did just that when they applied for a warrant to search the various properties owned by Gabriel Wortman in the aftermath of the mass shootings.

While, by default, the public is entitled to know what information was submitted, there are exceptions. There is a concurrent process to the search warrant request that allows the police to request that the information be sealed from public view, and only disclosed upon a successful application to have it unsealed.

All of this is significant because of how it may translate into the Mass Casualty Commission proceedings. Members of the public may have presumed that all of this information, that is to say everything the RCMP did and observed during the shooting spree, would become public during the Commission proceedings.

It is reasonable, therefore, to question why the RCMP and Crown are fighting this disclosure if it is going to become public just a few months anyway during the Commission hearings.

The bigger concern is that it may also be the case that if the RCMP is fighting disclosure now, they may continue to do so. If this is indicative of their approach to disclosure, it may be very difficult for the Commission to get the answers the victims’ families and the public are all seeking.